Blog Category: Geographic Mobility

The
U.S. Census Bureau reported today the percentage of people who changed residences between 2010 and 2011 was 11.6 percent, the lowest recorded rate since the Current Population Survey began
collecting statistics on the movement of people in the United States in 1948. The rate, which was 20.2 percent in 1985,
declined to a then-record low of 11.9 percent in 2008 before rising to 12.5
percent in 2009. The 2010 rate was not statistically different than the 2009
rate.

“Taken together,
these products paint a vivid picture of a nation on the move and tell a more
complete story than any one of them can separately,” said Alison Fields, chief
of the Census Bureau's Journey-to-Work and Migration Statistics Branch. “The
record low mover rate was driven by a drop in the likelihood of people moving
from one location to another within the same county. The last time this rate was
so low, the overall mover rate also reached a record
low.”

The U.S. Census Bureau reported today that among those who moved
between 2009 and 2010, more than four out of
10 did so for housing-related reasons, including the desire to live in a new or better home or
apartment.

Family concerns, such as a change in marital status, and employment
needs were other factors cited as reason for moving in the
new report, Geographical
Mobility: 2010.

“Tracking mobility allows us to examine shifts in demographic trends in
the population for the nation, regions and metro areas as a whole,” said David Ihrke,
survey statistician in the Census Bureau's Social, Economic and Housing
Statistics Division.

In 2010, 37.5 million people 1 year and older in the United
States had changed
residences within the past year, a rate fairly similar to that in 2009.
Among those who moved, 69.3 percent stayed within the
same county, 16.7 percent moved to a different county in the same state, 11.5
percent moved to a different state, and 2.5 percent moved to the United
States from abroad.

People in the Northeast were the least likely to move
at a rate of 8.3 percent in 2010, followed by the Midwest at 11.8 percent, the South at 13.6 percent, and the
West at 14.7 percent. While principal cities within metropolitan areas experienced a net
loss of 2.3 million movers between 2009 and 2010, suburbs saw a net gain
of 2.5 million movers. Release